


Uppsala Chant

by thestarsjustblinkforus



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsjustblinkforus/pseuds/thestarsjustblinkforus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Their eyes flicker towards each other, land, and then flit away like hummingbirds having had their fill as brief as it may have been, but as of late her gazes have lingered and he has not been entirely unresponsive.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uppsala Chant

_Drink, priest_ , she discreetly taps a finger against her cup.  _It will help..._

He brings his to his lips and his eyes say,  _thank you, yes, better_ , when the dry, dusty taste of the mushrooms are swept from his tongue and replaced with sweetness.

She continues to watch him intently as he takes another appreciative pull and he finds he likes it. Has been liking it.

Thyri has been watching him like this since the day Ragnar’s son was lost and she found him by the river on his knees praying.

He does not know how long she had stood there behind him, quietly listening to his words, his breath stuttering as he thought of the red unmoving bundle in Siggy’s arms, of Lagertha staring straight ahead, unseeing... and Gyda, Gyda running off into the woods with Thyri close behind, calling her name...

He had not been aware of her presence at all until she had knelt beside him at the waters edge. He had faltered then but continued when she did not speak, did not shame him, did not laugh. She had simply dipped her stained hands into the river, her hair falling over her shoulder and hiding her face from him as she listened.

He had watched the red disappear from her skin, her hands pale as fish under the rushing water and clasped together in unintentional prayer and he had finished with a press of the cross to his lips, a soft  _amen_. He had felt her with him. Not understanding his words perhaps, but his intent, and it seemed to him she approved.

For a long while they had sat in silence looking out over the water together until he had heard her soft intake of breath, the quivering release of it, and felt that he might be intruding. He had been about to rise, to leave her, when she had suddenly reached out, her thumb brushing gently against his cheekbone and following the path his own tears had made as he had prayed. Her fingers had curled briefly at his jaw, still wet and very cool and he had been startled but did not move away. He had merely looked at her as she did him. He had felt his skin grow warm beneath her gaze, her touch, but he did not once feel an urge to turn from her, to flee. She had not been trying to tempt him as Ragnar and Lagertha had done, and continued to do. She had been trying to say,  _I know_. She had been trying to say,  _I as well_. In her eyes he saw his own sorrow for Ragnar and Lagertha, Bjorn and Gyda mirrored.  

Thyri and her mother had been saved by the Lothbrook's kindness, their mercy, just as he had been. They too had been forcibly removed from their previous lives and were now living in servitude that neither had been accustomed to. He had noticed Thyri long before this moment. Saw her in her fine dresses tending to her new duties in the lodge awkwardly at first and then determinedly, her soft white hands becoming callused like his had become callused. He had noticed her kindness towards Gyda in particular, noticed her braiding her hair when the work for the day was completed, showing her her jewelry and making crowns out of necklaces, pendants resting against the girl's forehead...

When she had come stumbling from the woods Thyri had taken her hand away from him. She had stood when Gyda fell into his arms and after an uncertain moment turned to leave them as he fit his palm gently to the back of her head, comforting her as best he could.

He had watched Thyri go and had still felt her fingers lightly tracing the line of his jaw long after she had disappeared among the trees.

They have not spoken with words in the weeks since, but he is aware of her in a way he was not before and she him. Their eyes flicker towards each other, land, and then flit away like hummingbirds having had their fill as brief as it may have been, but as of late her gazes have lingered and he has not been entirely unresponsive. Occasionally, like now, he feels a surge of boldness rush through him and he looks up again, he meets her smile with his own.

Hers deepens, half hidden behind her cup, and they drink together companionably separated as they are by several lounging bodies and tree limbs as large as the men that lie upon them.

Thyri does not laugh at him as the others do, does not mock him, does not look on him as an object for her own amusement even as he submits again and again. She seems to understand he is trying. She seems to encourage it, to welcome it, and he is grateful for her quiet acceptance.

She finishes her wine, her tongue sweeping briefly over her lower lip. She still has not looked away and neither has he and he is beginning to feel very warm. Dizzy.

In the back of his mind he hears Rollo snort, and say, "Sit,  _priest_ ," and so he does.

His glass is filled again and he leans back against a tree, turning his face to the cooling wind and away from Thyri as she leans towards her mother who has gestured for her to come nearer. He feels the bark against his back, the sharp ridges of it through the coarse fabric of his tunic and decides it is pleasant. This is pleasant.

He drinks deep and he listens to the buzz and chatter around him, the shrieks of laughter, snatches of song, and a chant... somewhere a chant in the distance... and he knows it, he remembers it...

His lips are moving, he is singing along softly and it seems to him someone is pressing their fingers there, silencing him, lifting him to his feet and sending him after it...

And it  _is_  there...  _there_...  _yes_ , just under the din... It rises and falls like the waves that rose and fell unceasing for weeks of travel and he shivers remembering the cold, but he is hot now, he is hot because there is fire everywhere. Fire and smoke and he wonders if he has stumbled into hell and he cries out in fear and then he laughs because, no, no, it is a bonfire, merely a bonfire being stoked higher into the night sky and these figures coming from the trees, seeming to come  _from_  the trees, they are not shadows come to life, they are not demons. They are people. People like he is people except there is a constant thread of fear at all times running through him that they do not seem to know. He thinks it is the thing that separates them most - even more than his Christianity, even more than their paganism. They are an unafraid people. And this, more than anything, he yearns to emulate.

He walks on through the fires, through the woods, follows the chant that bucks and weaves in the night, ringing in his ears one moment and then fading to a whisper the next. It seems to be coming from all directions at one point and he slows not knowing quite where to turn.

And then Ragnar is suddenly there with his eyes that hurt to look at and  _have_  hurt to look at and he has no words for him because the last time they truly spoke he did not even believe himself what he had said. He had felt profoundly how inadequate and empty his platitudes were as Ragnar gazed back at him with his piercing eyes. He had felt ashamed of his God and then ashamed of himself for acknowledging it even for the briefest of moments, but the damage had been done. Doubt has settled within him like a sickness and he has felt the fever of it here in this place and does not know when it is over where he will be, what he will choose to be. He feels his faith crumbling like the pages of his bible he had left to rot, believing at the time he was keeping it safe by hiding it away, by learning instead of Odin and Thor, Freyja...

He was keeping himself safe.

His will to survive is strong. He is finding himself to be adaptive in ways he never would have imagined. He is giving in to the smoke and the fire swirling around him like a tempest...

But he clutches the metal cross in his palm reflexively and it burns and then he burns as he turns to follow Ragnar and finds before him instead a writhing field of limbs rising and falling, black swirls and patterns on skin that seem to disappear like the blood from Thyri’s hands and then snake back and imprint and stay... but Thyri’s hands were clean, they were clasped in prayer under rushing water that undulated like this field of skin before him and he hears her voice, her voice, he hears her voice say,  _priest_ , and she says it the way Ragnar and Lagertha say it sometimes, gently, without malice, without mockery, they say it like that is who he is even if he is not, even if he is not a priest, he is a monk, and explaining the difference does not seem to be something he could do and have stick as they are fond of their pet name and he is a pet, rope around his neck, leather band around his wrist, fingers around a wrist held down before him and a rising knee a thrusting backside before him, the arch of a naked foot fitted to the curve of a naked calf and the ocean of skin roils, ocean ocean ocean rocking him, rocking his dead brothers against him and he sobs, his mouth open in horror because he has not let himself think on it since and they fall around him, they fall apart, their limbs bursting apart into birds that escape to the sky and he can not follow, he can not fly, he is afraid, always afraid of the fall

His knees hit the ground, and Lief is there, suddenly there, and Lief is kind to him, Lief lifts him up and tells him the gods will not let him fall again, they will hold him...

And Lief’s hands slide away and he does not fall.

And Lief’s hands slide away and he does not fall and shatter into birds, he does not fall and sink beneath the earth, the waves.

He stands.

He is still standing.

But he has lost the chant...

His chant, his brothers’ chant.

It...

It has faded to nothing.

He can no longer hear it's rise and fall, he has lost it in the smoke, the fire, the skin of the woods, he has-

He stumbles to a halt with a sharp intake of breath because  _Thyri_...

Thyri stands before him surrounded by flickering stars and she watches him intently, always so intently, she smiles gently, always so gently and she says, “ _Priest_ ,”  she says, “ _I have been waiting for you._ ”

These are the first words she has spoken to him, the first words she has ever spoken to him aloud and he can say nothing in return, enamored as he is by the firelight flickering against her hair, her skin, dancing in her eyes as she comes to him bold and sure and her hand on his arm, she touches his arm, and then her lips landing briefly and then away like so many of their shared glances that he has never been able to hold for long until this night, this night where he has given in, and she is close, closer than she has been, closer than the edge of the river that day and he does not look away as he would have eventually done then, he does not blush and turn his head and fill it with hymns and prayers to keep her out as he has done since, he can not keep her out when she comes to him again, her hand over his heart that races as she kisses him again, and he is on fire, he is engulfed in flame, and their lips part as if to speak but do not and instead there is the soft whisper of her tongue between his, seeking and finding, and he can not help his hand that rises, that cradles her face as well, her hair slipping through his fingers like water and he thinks he has never felt, in all his years, the satisfaction of yearning being  _met_  like this.

They part slowly, reluctantly. He gazes with wonder and she with purpose before turning away with a slight incline of her head inviting him to follow and he does without a flicker of apprehension, of guilt for being touched and having touched, for wanting to touch again...

Thyri leads him into the quiet of a tent, and suddenly they are alone like they have not been since the first time they spoke but did not speak and she takes his hands and places them on her hips, she fits hers over his shoulders and pulls him near. She tilts her face up to his, lips parted and waiting, and he does not hesitate to meet them because the chant has lead him here, the... the gods have lead him here.

The fire is under his skin now and singing in his veins and every touch of Thyri's hands, every movement of her lips against his makes him gasp and moan and in his head he chants her name, he sets it to music, to music that sounds like his music, like their music...

He encircles her waist with his arms, pulling her close, fitting her body to his. She twines herself around him, her fingers sinking into his hair and grasping and he understands, he understands Ragnar and Lagertha, he understands their need and it is fierce, and it is rising but he holds it at bay, content to hold and be held, content to kiss and be kissed.

They part once again, gasping for the air they had both forgotten to take, and she laughs softly, but not at him, never at him, and he is too breathless to do the same but his eyes tell her  _I know_ , they tell her,  _I as well_.

"Priest..." she strokes his beard with her thumb and he closes his eyes, murmuring, "Athelstan..."

" _Athelstan_ ," and the press once more of her lips...

Thyri’s fingers find the edge of his tunic and breaks the kiss just long enough to lift it over his head.

He does not stop her, he does not want to and he meets her mouth again as the captured stars flicker and burn around them, his heart a hammer beating to be free of his chest... He thinks she must feel it under her palm, she must know -

She steps back slightly still within the circle of his arms and regards him for a long moment.

She bites her lip, the lip he had kissed and he thinks she is very beautiful. He is about to tell her so, about to speak with words for the first time, when she removes her dress in one swift motion, revealing herself to him, and they are lost, caught in his throat with his breath.

She smiles at his shyness, but her voice trembles slightly when she says, “You have never seen a woman.”

And him, softly, “No, not... not like this...”

“Then look all you like... I am for you,  _Athelstan_...”

His eyes do what they will with her permission, they follow the curves and planes of her body, the swell of her breasts and hips, the thatch of hair between her legs, the length and strength of her legs, her arms, her delicate shoulders, the bones of her neck and the hollow there at her throat...

He comes towards her, hardly aware he is doing so, as though he is charmed by magic, as though his head is still spinning with what he has drunk, what he has eaten, but he feels a clarity as he dips his head, as he presses his lips reverently to that hollow, as he tastes her skin with the tip of his tongue. And though he has seen it in the shadows, even this very night, he does not seem to know what he should do but press himself against her, and the very thought of all of her, warm and soft and not unaffected by his kiss, pressing back makes his blood race, makes him swell and pulse in a way he has never let himself experience until now.

Her hands come to his waist, they undo the laces there and the fabric falls. He is as naked as she now, his mouth at her shoulder now, the curve of her neck, and her fingers in his hair, her lower body brushing invitingly against his, her legs parting just enough to... and suddenly he is there against her warmth and he gasps sharply, he lifts his head and her eyes are waiting for him.

Her words on his lips, like breath, like a kiss, “I would have you...”

His hips shift of their own volition making their breath hitch, her hands grasping his arms harder.

“I would have you tonight...” her hands sweep up his back and down, down, pulling him closer, pulling him in and he is still there, still against her  _there_.

And he whispers against her mouth, breathes against her lips an answer, the answer he was always going to give her.

“ _Yes_...”

She steps back and he almost cries out with the loss of contact, his body straining for it now, something akin to pain, a longing like physical pain, but she is leading him to the furs piled beside a small fire and she sinks down among them, cradled in white, her body like honey, her hair spilled over her shoulders and glinting red in the firelight like the wine they had drunk together.

He lowers himself to her, knowing and not knowing but  _she_  knows and she takes him in hand and he hisses like a snake as she guides him, as she lifts her hips to take him and he drops his, slow, slow, slow until there... until yes... until his breath leaves him in a shuddering gasp and he all but collapses, catching himself at the last moment on his elbows, capturing her answering call with his mouth.

They stay that way, her intake of breath to his out, his out to her in, their torsos fitted together not a sliver between them and she lifts her long legs on either side of him, she folds them around his waist her heels digging into the small of his back urging him on and only then does he move, tentatively at first, his head swimming, black flowers blossoming behind his eyes...

“ _Athelstan_...”

... and he lets go.

He lets his body take over like it has been wanting to take over since that first invitation that first night in this strange world and he is moaning he is keening and she gasps into the shell of his ear, his name his name his name...

She cries out suddenly, gripping him like a vice, milking him, and he shudders against her, he spends himself inside of her and he can not seem to find his breath, she can not seem to stop shivering beneath him until she does with a jolt, her legs falling away.

They are both breathing hard, their breaths no longer in synch, their naked skin glistening with sweat like something jeweled and perfect in the firelight and he kisses her, he kisses her until they are both whimpering and writhing and slowly beginning to move as one again.

***

“The gods will be pleased with you...”

She murmurs this into his breast, curled against him, their limbs still entwined though they are no longer joined. He rests his chin atop her head marveling at how they had fit so effortlessly, how even now they fit so perfectly. He understands in a way he never has before how woman came from man and how man comes to woman to be one again, trying to recapture the lost paradise.

This glimpse of Eden, this echo of that innocence shuddering through the body...

His God tells him it is sin, all of this night is sin but it is the closest he has felt... the closest he has ever felt to Him...

That blinding whiteness, that soaring...

He had felt Him in that moment and was unafraid, for the first time unafraid.

And when he came back to his body he was no longer alone. Thyri’s arms were wrapped around him, holding him close, holding him safe, her own body an answer to his seeking, to his loneliness.

He should feel guilt at what he has done, but all he feels is peace. It is all he has ever wanted and Thyri has given this to him. She had brought him to God when God would not come to him, and he thinks perhaps she knew. He thinks perhaps they all know that they can reach their gods through each other and does not understand why his does not tell them this, why his God would have them deny themselves such a path to grace...

Thyri lifts her head, she touches his face, traces the slope of his nose, the arcs of his eyebrows. She looks at him as though she does not want to forget and he does not want to forget, so he does the same.

She kisses the tips of his fingers when they come to rest at the well of her lips and then she lifts herself from him, she turns away.

She reaches for a bowl set inside a ring of candles. A cloth lies over it, sheltering it’s contents and he sits up to see, molding his chest to her back, his chin on her shoulder. He feels her sink against him briefly, but straightens when he presses his lips to her neck as he had done before. She tells him softly, to rise, to stand.

She lifts the bowl from the circle as he does, sets it carefully at his feet and kneels before him, gathering the cloth in her hands and slipping it into the water. When she stands, she presses the cloth to his chest, she washes him gently, taking her time and eventually he perceives a pattern to her ministrations. He realizes it is a ritual of some sort and he smiles because he has not seen it before. Lagertha has never done this for Ragnar after their coupling and he asks her, “Why do you do this, Thyri” as she disappears behind him, drags the cloth between his shoulderblades and down to the curve of his backside.

“Don’t you understand? I have to...”

He does not, he wants to ask more, but her hands are touching him  _there_  now and he can not, he...

When she finishes she kneels at the bowl once more and he meets her there, he takes the cloth she has laid down.

He asks if he may do for her as well and she looks at him, a crease forming between her brows.

“I am not chosen.”

“ _I_  choose you, Thyri...”

She shakes her head with another of her soft small smiles, she touches his face once more, and he leans his cheek into her palm.

“You can not.”

She reaches for her dress, her hands shaking slightly as she does so.

She pulls it on over her head and stands there for a moment, her back to him.

“The Gods will be pleased with you,” she whispers again and then she is gone.

He looks down at the cloth still in his hands.

He places it over the bowl as carefully as she had done and he leaves the tent, he sets off into the night, the fire, the ghost of his brothers’ chant gone and replaced with the pounding of drums that echo his heart, that echoes the blood pulsing under his skin and he is unafraid.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely convinced they actually slept together since that's huge for Athelstan's character and I feel like they would not have left it so ambiguous if they had... *however* Thyri was totes in the buff during The Scene and well... yeah, this happened... It also happened because there are approximately zero Athelstan x Thyri fics as far as I can tell...


End file.
